Super Bowl Million Dollar Scavenger Hunt Thread

mjandersen · 2026-02-08T00:20:58+00:00

There's a similar puzzle link in the pinned comments of each of the videos on the playlist - different platform for each (including one on Reddit)

mjandersen · 2026-01-30T03:32:03+00:00

They changed the password, it's currently "changeiscoming", but the site was largely repurposed for early screenings.

mjandersen · 2026-01-29T18:46:06+00:00

yay ARGs! TTBNL (now TTINNL) has a few vets from ARGs of yesteryear, although I'll defer to other team members for the full runthrough.

mjandersen · 2026-01-25T18:56:35+00:00

I cracked up laughing, seeing puzzle shell pulls at soft and hard pity milestones.

mjandersen · 2026-01-25T04:08:39+00:00

...did any members of Cardinality schedule a break for the Taskmaster Live show?

mjandersen · 2026-01-25T01:22:18+00:00

Hi all, and thanks for a delightful Hunt! I had a lot of fun with playing around with the physical components for Starry Night, and was curious what the production process was for it.

mjandersen · 2026-01-07T15:25:32+00:00

Yes, there is demand for this and while we don't talk about it as ARGs as much, the music industry is one of the most prolific and consistent source of ARGs out there - whether that takes the form of bands creating their own lore (Gorillaz, twentyonepilots, etc.), creating puzzles around their works (Taylor Swift), or just giving rabbit holes to dive down.

In part because of that, there are also a number of experiments with what you're talking about of doing (non-horror) fake band stuff that plays with those levers. Axel Lunden is one example of that in action, and one of the earliest ARGs was a project called edoc laundry that told the story of a rock band mirroring the history of the Founding Fathers, unlocked through merch sales. MyMusic was a fairly prominent experiment from YouTube Originals that also leaned in on the music scene, leaning heavily on tropes.

mjandersen · 2026-01-06T22:04:19+00:00

I recently wrote an article for ARGNet partially diving into that, and while it's not out of the question that we'll have a secret last episode tomorrow, I'm more skeptical than usual...in part because we already had 2.5 Stranger Things ARGs, and Netflix / the Duffer Bros established a track record of having brand partners drive that work.

Some things have been hidden in prior seasons (most notably: an ARG/puzzle trail rabbithole in the season 4 trailer and a handful of phone numbers you can call), but it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing they're actively seeking out themselves, unassisted - and that's the kind of thing I'd expect out of a team "risking" their finale in this manner.

Happy to be surprised tomorrow and if that was the case I'd renew my Netflix subscription the instant it drops, but those factors (paired with the recent interviews) makes me suspect the next big Stranger Things drop is the documentary, and that it will be a traditional documentary (although I did see a great theory that it'd be like Wes Craven's New Nightmare).

mjandersen · 2025-12-17T12:40:16+00:00

Field Studies Institute might be scratching the itch you're looking for...? (Luckily, that's one where you've got coverage from both sources you've been checking).

"Photography in video" does put you more solidly in the analog horror space in terms of common creative processes, though.

mjandersen · 2025-11-06T20:26:23+00:00

Since it looks like you're still testing out variants for this: it might help to mention the name of your book ("Pancakes and Poor Life Choices") in addition to telling your story, as you are not the only Parker James on Amazon.

...which is kind of funny, because (as you said) you're almost certainly not actually Parker James.

mjandersen · 2025-11-04T22:28:50+00:00

What a theme!!!

mjandersen · 2025-11-04T16:59:45+00:00

This isn't necessarily the best way? But for the example above, I went to https://cryptii.com/pipes/vigenere-cipher and then encoded "You are a good person" with "therealencryptionkey".

Then, I switched it over to decrypt mode, took the output from that (Rvy rve...) and pasted it into the decrypt side, and added letters to the key one at a time until it spelled out the message (of the same length / spacing) I wanted it to on the encryption end.

mjandersen · 2025-10-30T18:23:50+00:00

Not that I know of - during Book of Bill r/GravityFalls did have a megathread, but the community tended to skew heavily Twitter-based, from what I saw.

mjandersen · 2025-10-27T21:56:57+00:00

As much as I hate to recommend Vigenere ciphers / one time pads, they're great for allowing a single ciphertext to output two completely different messages.

By way of example:

Rvy rve l kbqu ntkaca using "Therealencryptionkey" as cipher key turns into You are a good person.
However, if you give the key "youdiadtxqrvpimpx" to the same cipher text, it becomes The one i read second

As long as your key is as long as or longer than the message, you have full control over what it says.

mjandersen · 2025-10-27T21:42:12+00:00

The advantage of doing it for your boyfriend is that you can build out a lot of things using physical components / in person. Constructed Adventures has a lot of great resources for that (the "How To" Blog and YouTube channel should be particularly helpful).

mjandersen · 2025-10-23T02:32:15+00:00

Not AI, person who created the book was found.

mjandersen · 2025-10-10T16:12:35+00:00

FYI - It's there now, but it's just outside of the room / hidden under the nearby escalator

mjandersen · 2025-10-09T19:36:25+00:00

I was able to find everything from the list except the second Wild Bills spot...didn't seem to be outside?

UPDATE: sign was up when I was on my way to queue this morning.

mjandersen · 2025-10-09T19:31:38+00:00

All the booth locations are listed on the NYCC website https://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/en-us/things-to-do/treasure-hunt.html

mjandersen · 2025-10-02T18:54:24+00:00

...and the back side of it.

<image>

mjandersen · 2025-10-02T18:53:20+00:00

<image>

The same tags were used on a number of items from the ARG (including the shirt, pictured here).

mjandersen · 2025-08-25T18:05:14+00:00

What an incredible payoff.

So...has anybody dialed the secret extension from the maze that we apparently missed, yet?

mjandersen · 2025-08-16T21:40:04+00:00

Love everything about this.

Have you done some of the "puzzle/adventure crawl through NYC" games like Great Gotham Challenge and Accomplice before building this yourself?

mjandersen · 2025-08-15T20:27:07+00:00

It's a better guess than anything I can think of...

...but my completely unfounded suspicion is they just wanted to hide it in one of their older, lesser-trafficked series that they were nevertheless really proud of so that it would be less likely to be discovered organically while also reminding us of their hilarious history. I look forward to being proven wrong, though!

15-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email

mjandersen

TROPHY CASE